1/48 Academy F-15E - WIP #2: Loadouts, Painting

Continue from where i left off the other day.

This build will be placed under: 1/48 Academy F-15e label

and also will be in my site: Kumanworks.com when its done :o)

Armaments && Loadouts
I love to see my aircraft that i build armed to the max, so with this F-15E; i would go OOB-ly insane with the weapons (after all this kit said on the box "with weapon", so its only appropriate to use it all).

So far i've done painting the MK83's, all the MK20s, the Sparrow AAM, the sidewinder AAMs, the ECM Pod and the fuel tanks.

next will paint the GBU-12 and the ASAT Missile (eventhough i dont think i'll use the ASAT Missile) but maybe i can display it on the "tarmac" beside the f-15.

Painting
From my reference, i really liked the F-15E with the darker tone of grey instead the light grey paint. So after priming, i mixed my own Dark Grey with H335 + some black. It would be easier to just use H331 or H68 out of the bottle, but with my limited stock of paint i'll have to mixed my own grey instead. 
Below is after the first layer of the grey mixture, those pre-shade is still very visible. A 2nd coat is needed. 
Note to self: Next time when do pre-shade with dark grey instead of black.

After the 2nd layer of grey the result as follows.

also already unmasked the exhaust & the nosecone.

next is preparation for decals

Decal Preparation.
My decal routine would involve 2 layers of Future for the whole aircraft. and wait for at least 12 hours in between layers.

Notice the streaking on the wing portion, this is intentional as part of the weathering during the painting process and also the result of the different paint mixture shades. As i doesn't mix all in one go, instead every painting session is a different mix, thus the result is a pre-weathering ( i guess..).

That is all for now.

Next:
Decals (a lot of stencils!!)